BRATTLEBORO — Cherry Street Artisans Open House and Café, the fourth annual show of work by a group of 12 artisans, will take place in December.
The ground floor of Judy Zemel's Victorian house will be transformed into a fine craft show and café, which organizers describe as a “uniquely festive and professional event.”
Participating artisans all have in common a long history of creating fine craft and a love of good food and music, and the guiding vision for Cherry Street Artisans is to create a “community-oriented, warm, and welcoming fair incorporating craft, food, and music,” organizers write.
“ It offers a direct connection between the artisans and the public in an easy-to-access, fun setting with plenty of hours to suit everyone's schedule,” the group writes.
The group does all the work of planning, promoting, setting up, and being present at the event.
This year, the Café welcomes Aew Ladd and her Thai fare, plus desserts baked by Hilltop Montessori students under the supervision of Janice Malin.
Saturday evening takes on the air of a bistro with live music from 6 to 9 p.m. As in past years, Teta Hilsdon and other musical guests will play and sing songs and invite sing-along and spontaneous guitar-passing.
Some of the 12 participating artisans have been friends and colleagues for decades - as many as 30 years. There are two mother-daughter pairs.
New group members
This year, five artists join the group: Jason Breen, Patricia Johnson, Ladd, Malin, and Ellen Troy.
Breen is a builder of fine cabinets and furniture. For Cherry Street, he will use the wood left over from those pieces, turned on a lathe to make functional and decorative bowls and plates, small boxes (i.e., salt cellars), and fun objects. Each piece is hand-turned one at a time, using primarily local woods.
Johnson has been a bookbinder for more than 30 years, and is always reinventing her craft and art. From traditional books and boxes to more innovative mobile structures, she uses found objects and original paste papers to complete her books.
When teaching in local schools, Johnson's students know her as the whimsical Mizz Eloise Twilight, so new this year is a line of Eloise Twilight Delight's - a range of original unique earrings, market bags, and various gift items..
Ladd was born and raised in Thailand in a family and community of weavers. In her weaving, she enjoys experimenting with varying patterns and colors, using fine natural fibers of cotton and Tencel (a regenerated cellulose fiber made from bleached wood pulp).
For more than 20 years Ladd has been living in Vermont, where she raised her two daughters. She is educated in economics and accounting and volunteers in local schools teaching Thai culture and cooking. She manages a home-based Thai cuisine catering business.
Malin is a baker extraordinaire when she's not at her full-time job. Under her supervision, Hilltop Montessori School children and parents will be baking her recipes to sell at the Café; proceeds will go to the school. Offerings include pumpkin cheesecake, French apple cake, chocolate cherry biscotti, kourambedes (Greek wedding cookies), raspberry linzer cookies, and stollen.
Troy, who makes colorful and elegant beaded jewelry, has worked as a graphic designer and fiber artist for 30 years.
She is fascinated with the mosaic quality of beading, with how the build-up of beads can subtly or dramatically form larger patterns.
The other returning artisans offer a wide variety of items.
Josh and Marta Bernbaum, who make unique glass work in their studio in West Brattleboro, will offer their ornaments, tumblers, and other smaller functional vessels.
Marta uses torch-working techniques, which allow her to make detailed, delicate glass forms by melting glass rods with an oxy-propane torch. Marta's mother, Cher Jones, will again offer felted animals.
Pamela Cubbage taught herself to knit as a teenager, accidentally turning her first sock into a Christmas stocking. She's been knitting whimsical stockings ever since, some of which will make an appearance at Cherry Street.
Cubbage will also bring her hats, potholders, and napkins, hand-knitted in bright colors and natural yarns.
Teta Hilsdon works with high-fired stoneware thrown on the wheel. Hailing from a family of craftswomen and engineers, she is attracted to functional art. She will have a variety of carved serving bowls, platters, clocks, and mugs in strong, earthy colors.
Hilsdon says that her mother, Eileen Hilsdon, inspired her through her own creativity. Eileen, at age 91, will offer quilted potholders and small quilts.
Naomi Lindenfeld, whose colored porcelain pieces reflect her love of dance and patterns found in nature, has been refining a technique of staining clay with metallic oxides, then layering and carving the soft clay to create patterns since 1983. She then transforms the clay into vases, mugs, bowls, lamps, and other useful items.
Jane Viking Swanson's love of fiber arts led her to lace making in the 1980s; she specializes in Battenberg lace made by hand and cutwork lace on the sewing machine. She loves bringing these laces to the 21st century with her own designs and recreations of vintage patterns and will offer lace ornaments for sale.
Judy Zemel is well known for her hand-woven, hand dyed-rayon chenille creations. In recent years, she has been printing and painting on linen napkins, silk scarves, and cotton handkerchiefs. She also makes necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and most recently mobiles using crystal and glass beads. Another manifestation of her love of color. Zemel's remaining inventory of chenille oversize scarves and shawls will be available.